Capacitor File Selector

For detailed tutorial on how to enable dark mode using this plugin visit: https://medium.com/@hinddeep.purohit007/picking-files-in-capacitor-apps-a82c67384496

Demo Application: https://github.com/hinddeep/demo-capacitor-file-picker

Platforms Supported: Android, iOS, and Web/PWA

This plugin can be used to conditionally select files form Android/iOS devices and the web.

Installation

npm install capacitor-file-selector

Android Configuration:

Open MainActivity.java and add the following code inside this.init()

add(FileSelector.class);
Adding the above mentioned line will add the following import statement: 
import com.bkon.capacitor.fileselector.FileSelector;

If you encounter errors, please add both the lines manually to MainActivity.java

To view all the supported Extensions please visit:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Basics_of_HTTP/MIME_types/Common_types

iOS Configuration:

To view all the supported extensions please visit:
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Miscellaneous/Reference/UTIRef/Articles/System-DeclaredUniformTypeIdentifiers.html

Web Configuration

import { Plugins } from '@capacitor/core'; 
const { FileSelector } = Plugins; 
import ‘capacitor-file-selector’ // Comment out this line when building android/iOS app<br/>

SPECIAL NOTE: When building the app for Android/iOS please do not forget to comment out “import ‘capacitor-file-selector’ ”. The import statement is used to register the web implementation of the plugin. If you register the web implementation of the plugin on native android/iOS app, the code that gets invoked is the web implementation instead of the native Android/iOS implementation.

Select Files:

Supported extensions:- All extensions are supported. Please refer https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Basics_of_HTTP/MIME_types/Common_types

Supported Broad Categories: “images”, “videos” and “audios”

To allow the selection of all file types use “*”

If you wish to allow the user to select more than file, set the multiple_selection variable to true, else set it to false. Use the ext array to list out all the permitted extensions / broader file categories. The user will be able to select only the files with extensions / category outlined in this ext array.

The ext array IS case sensitive. All characters entered must be in lowercase. If not use Typescript’s map function to convert them into lowercase.

ext = ext.map(v => v.toLowerCase());

Data returned by the file picker contains:

1. “paths” array - an array of web accessible URL(s)
   
2. “original_names” - an array of the name(s) of the file(s)
   
3. “extensions” - an array of extension(s) corresponding to the files selected
   

2 and 3 can be combined to rebuild the original file name. The following function illustrates how to upload files fetched from Android/iOS/Web to any server.

async select() { 
    let multiple_selection = true 
    //let ext = [".jpg",".png",".pdf",".jpeg"] // list of extensions
    let ext = ["MP3", "ImaGes"] // combination of extensions or category 
    //let ext = ["videos", "audios", "images"] // list of all category
    //let ext = ["*"] // Allow any file type
    ext = ext.map(v => v.toLowerCase()); 
    let formData = new FormData(); 
    let selectedFile = await FileSelector.fileSelector({ 
      multiple_selection: multiple_selection, 
      ext: ext 
    }) 

    if(this.platform.is("android")) 
    { 
      let paths = JSON.parse(selectedFile.paths) 
      let original_names = JSON.parse(selectedFile.original_names) 
      let extensions = JSON.parse(selectedFile.extensions) 
      for (let index = 0; index < paths.length; index++) { 
          const file = await fetch(paths[index]).then((r) => r.blob()); 
          formData.append( 
            "myfile[]", 
            file, 
            original_names[index] + extensions[index] 
          ); 
        }
    } 
    else if(this.platform.is("ios")) 
    { 
      for (let index = 0; index < selectedFile.paths.length; index++) { 
        const file = await fetch(selectedFile.paths[index]).then((r) => r.blob()); 
        formData.append( 
          "myfile[]", 
          file, 
          selectedFile.original_names[index] + selectedFile.extensions[index] 
        ); 
      } 
    } 
    else 
    { 
      FileSelector.addListener("onFilesSelected", (data:FileList) => { 
            for(var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) 
            { 
              formData.append( 
                "myfile[]", 
                data.item(i), 
                data.item(i).name + data.item(i).type  
              );
            }
        }); 
    } 
}